”Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans…”

— John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961

America turns 250 this year.

For a nation, that is an extraordinary achievement. History is filled with countries that rose, flourished, and disappeared long before reaching such a milestone. For a Jew, 250 years is but a brief chapter in history. Yet anniversaries like this invite us to do more than celebrate.

They invite us to reflect: How does a free people endure for two and a half centuries?

Constitutions matter. Laws matter. Rights matter.

But as I have reflected on America’s 250th anniversary, I have come to believe that something else matters just as much. Every generation inherits institutions it did not build and must decide what it will preserve, what it will strengthen, and what it will pass on. That has long been one of the guiding principles of my life.

Whether at home, at work, or in my community, I have tried to leave things just a little better than I found them.

Only recently did I realize who had taught me that lesson. It wasn’t from a book. It wasn’t from John F. Kennedy. It came from two builders.

Building was the family business.

My Zadie, whom everyone else knew as Eddie, built schools and other public buildings throughout Boston’s rapidly growing suburbs during the postwar boom of the 1950s and 1960s. My father, Mel, served in the Navy after World War II. When he returned home, the GI Bill made it possible for him to earn a degree in architecture before returning to the family business. Together, they helped build places where generations of children would learn, grow, and eventually become citizens.

For most of my life, those schools existed only as a handful of old black-and-white photographs my mother passed along after my father died. I would occasionally look at them, but I never really saw them.

Only recently have I begun to see them differently.

Today, when I look at one of those photographs, I no longer see a school. I see children walking through doors built by two men they would never know. I see teachers investing in young minds. I see parents dropping off sons and daughters with the quiet confidence that another school day has begun.

I see two builders who never met any of those children, yet somehow helped shape all of their futures. That realization caught me by surprise. Until I began reflecting on America’s 250th anniversary, I had never connected those old photographs to the country I love.

My father and my Zadie thought they were........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)